Founded on a leveled mountaintop above the Oaxaca Valley, Monte Albán became the Zapotec capital — a city of carved 'danzante' stelae, conquest slabs, and one of Mesoamerica's earliest writing and calendar systems.
The city lost political pre-eminence in the Late Classic and was largely abandoned around 800–850 AD; Zapotec power fragmented into valley city-states like Mitla and Zaachila that endured to contact.
The atlas holds 5 border frames for Zapotec (Monte Albán) — the shape you scrub through changes in 500 BC · 361 BC · 162 BC · 50 · 300.
A focused study of Monte Albán and the rise of Zapotec civilization in the Oaxaca Valley.
The classic comparative archaeology of the Zapotec and Mixtec.